because i know your voice
by ten.years.only.with.you
Summary: Lydia had stopped believing in story book anecdotes only to find out she was living in one. stydia.


hope is a four letter word.

x

Their lives are one big apocalyptic nightmare of werewolves and witches and legends that Lydia once thought were cocktail ridden story book anecdotes that her father doted on her as a little girl with gullible green eyes and strawberry blonde ringlets.

Yeah. Fucking. Right.

x

Lydia stops believing in story book anecdotes the same day that Jackson Whitmore tells her that she is beautiful. He has these blue eyes that make her heart stammer in her chest and this ugly smirk on his cherub mouth that gives her the sensation to avoid everything about him. Instead, she takes his hand and guides him down the hallway relishing in the wide eyes and shell shocked looks of all the students changing classes. Jackson Whitmore never follows anyone, but Lydia will change that.

With a conspiratorial wink behind her at the rest of the lacrosse team, she plows ahead, huge smile on her lips.

x

Allison Argent moves to town the following school year with her chocolate waves and heart clenching grin and her honesty that makes Lydia uncomfortable because she has never met another girl on the same level as her. And rather than trash and belittle, she invites her over to study and hang out and paint their nails and giggle about boys.

She always wanted a girlfriend, and she shyly considers the fact that Allison, even though she knows nothing about the girl, might be the one she could tell it all to. That thought comforts her the rest of the day when Jackson ignores everything she says.

x

Lydia had no idea who Scott McCall was until that lacrosse practice where he pissed off the entire first line and impressed the coach with his superior, way passably super human, abilities.

Scott has shaggy brown hair and kind eyes and is obviously so in love with Allison that it makes her heart hurt because when was the last time that anyone had looked at her like that.

(In a few months time, she realize exactly how long Stiles Stilinski has been looking at her like that.)

x

Jackson dumps her, and she storms down the outside corridor and into the girls bathroom with her mascara carving roads in her perfectly porcelain cheeks. Then she wipes her face and squares her shoulders because she is Lydia fucking Martin, and defeat is never an option.

Later that day, she tries on several pink dresses and watches as Stiles watches her in the mirror, his mocha eyes never once leaving the coast of her body or the heart of her face.

x

Finding out that Scott is a werewolf and so is this older guy that's been masquerading as a helpful friend, Derek or whatever, makes her stomach clench and boil in a sickness that she just has to sit down like right now.

She gave up on story book anecdotes so long ago only to find out that she is living in one.

x

Side note: Jackson is, now, a giant lizard being controlled by that weirdo that stalks Allison, cementing himself into photos with her on his photoshop. Oh. My. God.

Also, Peter Hale is a freak because he used her and the supernatural abilities that she didn't even know she had to bring him back from the dead.

(She would give anything to wake up from all of this and go get her nails done with Allison and then read a German version of _Lolita _and be normal.)

(Two months later, normalcy never crosses her mind again because the word _'pack'_ takes up too much space in her frontal lobe. She doesn't hate it)

x

She delivers a key and watches a monster become a man and understands that he loved her, hell, he still might, but it's the pull in her chest that directs her gaze away from those cocky blue eyes because she understands now that stories are real, and she doesn't want this one to be hers. Not anymore.

x

A deer crashes through her windshield and Stiles saves her. A swarm of crows smashes all the windows, terrorizing English class (and they were just learning about Conrad too, damnit), and Stiles saves her.

Lydia remembers when she had a panic attack in the skating rink. Lydia remembers when she was prostrate in a hospital bed. Lydia remembers when she was lying in wet grass with death breathing down her neck. And you guessed it.

The pattern doesn't surprise her really.

x

Everyone knows she is wicked smart: straight A's in everything and a GPA that cannot be touched, perfect math and verbal. No one else is that smart.

She side glances at Stiles' English paper one Thursday afternoon. How the hell did he beat her by two points?

Hours later when they're up in myths and Latin and paganism and neither one of them has broken a sweat, she secretly keeps her opinions to herself because the boy really _knows_ what he is doing.

x

Sometimes she catch him looking at her, and he'll smile, and she'll smile back, and she wonders how there was ever a time in her life that she didn't notice him because he's just too much of everything not to be noticed.

Aidan turns her cheek, running a finger down the graceful column of her neck, she still can't shake the heaviness of Stiles' gaze when another boy's mouth finds its way to hers.

x

They spend their night in hell, which is really saying something, because outside of Beacon Hills, she can't imagine anything worse, but this place gives their hometown a run for its money. Lydia holds onto him for dear life, hears the rapid quickfire beat of his heart in an erratic way that matches her own so much that she is sure that they are both going to burst each time they find the start of a mass suicide ritual being committed by those that are their friends, their family. The word pack comes to mind and she grasps at it in her head, feels the weight of the letters, and jumps.

Life and death situations are a dime a dozen, but when it involves Stiles, there is no conscious thought or jumble of words that she can even attempt to form. She leaps and feels him scurry out from under her meager frame, the look of disbelief etched in his cheekbones and tears in his eyes. He holds her until he can't anymore.

x

With her back to the windows and a noose tightening around her neck, she screams and kicks her high heeled feet, and feels the rope press against her skin, tearing, shredding.

And then salvation in the only form she is sure she will ever know.

x

Jennifer takes his father and Lydia wilts like a flower in the winter.

Jennifer takes Scott's mother and Lydia gasps for breath.

Jennifer takes Allison's father and Lydia loses her sight.

She never loses her voice though.

x

The day he falls apart she is wearing a blue dress and her hair is pulled back halfway with the remaining strawberry blonde strands wild around the heart of her cheeks, her lipstick is peony tinted, and she hadn't covered up her scars that morning.

Stiles twirls in the hallway, body spinning in an uneven downward spiral that makes her heart stammer like a goddamn hummingbird, control fleeting from her fingers as she leads him to the boys locker room, sunlight bursting in the cracks of window above them as he struggles to breathe, worry wracked on his face and stuck in his throat. Lydia is a certified genius, but for the love of all things holy if she can't fix him then what good is she because—no she will not even let herself go there.

She can fix this she can fix this she can fix this she can fix this she can fix this she_ has_ to fix this.

x

She kisses him and she feels his breathing stop, feels his heart settle, feels his hands set upon the cold concrete floor.

She opens her eyes and he is staring at her like she is the world and she swears by giving him air she lost it.

(He kisses her and he feels her breathing stop, feels her heart speed up ten million volts, feels her hands set hard, never ceasing the grip on his cheeks.)

x

This is a monumentally bad idea and she can tell from the look on everyone's face (Isaac is making her so uncomfortable in the way he is twitching, and Jesus, Allison quit that), but desperate times and all.

An emotional bond. The sentence strings in the steely silence of the clinic, and instinctively she reaches for Allison and watches as Isaac leans towards Scott, but their leader has other ideas. She didn't know he was a physic too as he instructs her to gravitate towards Stiles, fingers kneading in the soft fabric of his shirt, and as she pushes him down in that basin with his father's badge in one hand and most of her in the other, the taste of him still in her mouth, she holds on until Isaac pries her numb purple fingers from Stiles' shoulders.

(Come back to me.)

x

She stands in a whirlwind of pagan bullshit and mistletoe and mountain ash never once forgetting that Peter Hale is her only hope right now and if that already isn't the worst sign ever, she isn't sure what is.

After a thousand charged lightning bolts and one shattered ceiling, she and Cora drag the corpses (maybe) to the vet and watch him work his magic. Aidan breathes before Ethan does and Lydia feels her soul crumble as she peers down at him and his cocky smile and lurid slate eyes.

Somewhere her savior is falling down and she can do nothing to help from where she is.

x

Lydia goes home when the dawn is breaking on the horizon in a horribly vivid crimson that makes her stomach curl but her blue dress is wrinkled and her strawberry blonde waves are flat and her peony lipstick is smudged and her scars are open for the world to see.

And with the blinds drawn and her thrashing in her sheets, she still tastes Stiles on her lips. The page of her book flutters in the breeze from the open window, _osculare me, et ego respondeo amet nova. _

(Kiss me a paragraph and I'll reply with a novel.)

x

Stiles doesn't sleep that day, he watches his father until the sheriff gets pissed and tells him that his mocha eyes are glazed and exhausted, so please son go take a damn nap, cause I'll still be here when you wake up.

The bookmarked page of his legal pad rests gently on the quilt near the foot of his bed, written in his slanted cursive _φίλα με μια παράγραφο και θα απαντήσει με ένα μυθιστόρημα._

(One day he'll tell her what it means.)


End file.
